The Democrat/Media Axis also works equally hard to pump up or maintain the reputations of frauds, buffoons, and malefactors. The organs of the mainstream media are run by the left for the benefit of its friends. I think back (or try to), for example, to some of the hot authors on campus when I was a student. If you’re under 50, I think you would almost have to be a student of the era to have a clue who they were. Paul Goodman. Herbert Marcuse. Charles A. Reich. Carlos Castaneda. Eldridge Cleaver (in his soulful rapist phase). I read them all and more.

The same applies in spades to the left’s favored politicos. My favorite example is Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison and the Star Tribune. Fraud, buffoon, malefactor — Ellison is all that and more. When Ellison was first running for Congress as a left-wing Democrat and Muslim in 2006, the Star Tribune never got around to reporting that Ellison had been the local leader of the Nation of Islam, even though its own archives documented it to a fare-thee-well.

Don’t even ask whether the Star Tribune ever explored how Ellison squared the tenets of the Democratic platform on abortion, gay rights, female equality, and all the rest with Islam. Which branch of Islam does Ellison subscribe to? What mosque? Again, don’t even ask. On this score and many others, the Star Tribune’s treatment of Ellison contrasts with its treatment of Sixth District Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose former membership in a local church affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod has been a subject of intense interest.

Over this past weekend Ellison made a fool of himself on national television. Indeed, his appearance on MSNBC drew the attention of RealClearPolitics, precisely because it was so laughably stupid. In his MSNBC appearance, Ellison defended the flood of regulations issued by the Obama administration as a wonderful job creation program for private business.

I posted the video in “How Dems create jobs” and wondered facetiously if the Star Tribune would note Ellison’s howlers in the interview, as it faithfully records Michele Bachmann’s occasional slips. Au contraire, mon frère.

In “Ellison, liberals look to brew own Tea Party,” Star Tribune Washington correspondent Jeremy Herb writes something like a press release in the guise of news for the folks back home. Thanks, Jeremy! If things don’t work out for you at the Star Tribune, you can always find a job over on Ellison’s staff.

Herb’s “story” not only provides an airbrushed account of Ellison’s recent deep thoughts, it provides an airbrushed account of the Occupy phenomenon itself. Give the post-bankruptcy Star Tribune credit for efficiency. With Herb’s “story,” it kills two birds with one stone.